Military Coverups (posted by DT)

Now don't get me wrong here; this is not a post to beat up on the military or on soldiers. But this video (which is not for the faint of heart):
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/05/4117730-wikileaks-posts-combat-video-from-iraq-showing-civilian-casualties

...is really disturbing. In it, US soldiers in Baghdad in 2007 engage and kill a bunch of Iraqis who were apparently not a threat and were not even Bad Guys, including shooting up the van of Good Samaritans that tried to help the wounded.

Now it's impossible for me to fully understand the pressures faced by American soldiers occupying a foreign land with hostile people hiding everywhere. I can understand how some guys get jumpy and shoot first, asking questions later. I'm not looking to skewer these soldiers.

But what about their commanders who covered up these killings? It was pretty clear in the aftermath of this incident that a horrible mistake was made and innocent people were killed (there were two children in the van badly injured- they were being brought to school by their father). But the military claimed that all the dead were insurgents, except for two Reuters photographers. Look at the video- it's pretty obvious that's not the case.

I guess what this reminds me about most of all is that we shouldn't take military accounts of war actions at face value without independent confirmation. Top military brass have been lying in the US and everywhere else since the beginning of time, and they're not going to stop now.

And where's the media? We've barely heard a whisper about this in the mainstream press- this is a big story!